': "The quibbler puts the Daily Prophet in last place as Harry Potter, the boy who lived was interviewed yesterday by none other than the famous Rita Skeeter, who last year worked for the Daily Prophet, Harry Potter tells in the interview exactly what happened in that maze, how Cedric died and how he-who-must-not-be-named returns, Potter even shared some of the Death Eaters still out wandering free, probably the same Death Eaters that attacked at the famous Quidditch World Cup 2 summers ago... "
Xenophilius talks again about crumble-horned snorkack and says that he plans to go this summer with his daughter on a vacation to try and find them, we'll certainly wish them luck: "Quibbler turns from lies to facts"
': "Quibbler writes everything the Daily Prophet ignores, like the massive break-out in azkaban that released so many of the most high secured prisoners, saying that it was Sirius Black, when Harry Potter still claims him innocent and says its the work of only the darkest wizard in the world, you-know-who"
— Ted Tonks dies while on the run from death eaters for being muggleborn and not turning up for questioning, another muggleborn killed as well as a goblin were killed with Ted, while it is heard that a muggleborn boy, Dean Thomas and a goblin called Griphook who were with them, escaped unharmed[src]
The Quibbler is a wizarding tabloid published and edited by Xenophilius Lovegood, father of Luna Lovegood, who gets every issue of The Quibbler when it is published and could be part of the reason behind her odd beliefs. It publishes odd theories and also published Rita Skeeter's interview of Harry Potter on Lord Voldemort's return. Many think that The Quibbler is rubbish, including Hermione Granger, Rita Skeeter, and Dirk Cresswell; the latter referred to it as a "lunatic rag" and when Hermione informed Rita that she would be publishing the interview in the Quibbler she looked at Hermione with disdain.
In the early to mid 1990s, The Quibbler published many ridiculous conspiracy theories, like the crumple horned snorkack's existence. In July or August 1995, the magazine published an edition with an article that put forward the theory that Sirius Black was actually the reclusive rock star Stubby Boardman.[1] When Harry Potter read the article on the Hogwarts Express, he found it to be total rubbish. The same issue also had a segment written in Runes which caused the reader to look at the magazine upside down.[1]
The Quibbler scored a journalistic coup in February of 1996 when the magazine agreed to run an interview with Harry Potter concerning the Rebirth of Lord Voldemort.[2] The interview, given by ex-Daily Prophet columnist Rita Skeeter, was published in the March edition, and as it offered another take on recent events, the magazine quickly sold out.[2]Dolores Umbridge, a Ministry bureaucrat acting as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Hogwarts High Inquisitor, and later Headmistress at Hogwarts, banned students from having copies of the Quibbler after this article, as she and the Ministry were intent on denying harry his will
However, Hermione was very pleased about this, saying that the one thing Umbridge could do to make all the students (and teachers) want to read it was to ban it, as the students were very focused on rebelling against the sadistic tyrant. Harry received lots of fan mail during breakfast at the Great Hall, and some letters said he had them convinced, especially after the Ministry's poor reaction to the 1996 mass breakout from Azkaban. In the article, he names all the Death Eaters he saw in the Little Hangleton graveyard and gives as many details as he could of the night Voldemort returned. Though Rita was displeased about writing for the Quibbler, and even more displeased that she wasn't going to get paid for it, she was blackmailed into writing the article by Hermione, who threatened to reveal to the world that Skeeter was an unregistered Animagus.
The interview with Harry went on to be one of the biggest selling individual issues ever. After the Battle of the Department of Mysteries and the world was forced to believe Voldemort had returned, the Daily Prophet began to stop slandering Harry Potter and call him the "lone voice of truth". In addition, they used this interview in their paper, calling it "exclusive", even though it was printed in the Quibbler months ago. By late summer that same year, The Quibbler had returned to its usual form, offering an issue with free Spectrespecs to see wrackspurts.[3]
During the height of the Second Wizarding War, when Voldemort took over the Ministry of Magic, The Quibbler was one of the only media outlets to print the truth and publicly support Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.[4] To combat this dissent, the Death Eaters abducted Luna, and held her hostage against Xenophilius's good behaviour in the basement of Malfoy Manor.[5]
Due to his daughter's capture, Xenophilus began printing stories advocating the capture of "Undesirable Number One" (Harry), and when Harry, Hermione, and Ron Weasley came to visit his home in the spring of 1998, Xenophilius tried to turn them in to the Ministry (i.e. the Death Eaters) in a desperate attempt to get his daughter back. The trio narrowly escaped, and Xenophilius was imprisoned in Azkaban and his house was blown up because of an Erumpent horn .[5]
Later work[]
"[The Quibbler] has returned to its usual condition of advanced lunacy, and is appreciated for its unintentional humour."
—J. K. Rowling on the Quibbler after the defeat of Voldemort
After Voldemort's defeat, The Quibbler presumably returned to printing its strange theories, possibly including proof of the existence of some creatures discovered by Luna Lovegood, who became a famous wizarding naturalist.
"HARRY POTTER SPEAKS OUT AT LAST: THE TRUTH ABOUT HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED AND THE NIGHT I SAW HIM RETURN"
—a label in front cover of March 1995 edition of The Quibbler[src]
In an effort to make people believe Harry Potter's story of what happened in the graveyard on the night of Lord Voldemort's return, Hermione Granger arranged for an interview between him and Rita Skeeter to be published in The Quibbler, as the Daily Prophet was painting Harry as either a liar or a nutter, in line with the Ministry's stance that the Dark Lord had not returned.
This turned out to be the best-selling issue of all time. Dolores Umbridge banned the magazine from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in Educational Decree Number Twenty-Seven once this interview was printed, but students found ways to magically hide the magazine and read it anyway, but many of them read it purely because Umbrige banned it. This caused a surge in the popularity of The Quibbler making it have to reprint. Xenophilius eventually sold the story to the Daily Prophet once the Ministry was forced to admit that Voldemort had returned, and he and Luna used the money to travel to Sweden in search of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.
Behind the scenes[]
A cover of The Quibbler which lists Harry Potter as "Undesirable No. 1" was created for the film however it does not appear in the final cut of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.
The website The-Leaky-Cauldron launched the online version of the Quibbler, all previously published issues can be access via this link.
The website theHPfan.com published their own Quibbler articles too, but it is no longer available.
To quibble is to avoid or to be vague, so therefore a quibbler is one who avoids or is vague.
